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On Our Way to Somewhere

In her book on writing and life Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott devotes a chapter to the topic of index cards. She quotes Henry James, “A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost,” and explains that she keeps cards and pens around the house, and a folded card in her back pocket when she goes out. If she has an idea, or sees or overhears something memorable, she writes it down on her card.

Lamott wrote her book in 1994, before we all started using computers and carrying cell phones. And today I take a lot of notes with my iPhone. But I valued this lesson from Anne’s book, and it served me so well for so long, that I usually still carry cards with me. I prefer 3×5 inch cards, blank on both sides, but that’s not important.

What matters is that the people around us frequently say things so profound, without even meaning to, that their words ring like bells for a long time afterward.

One day, my Dad said to me, “The mums are blooming,” and it just stuck. I wrote it down. And when I looked at it again, I thought of that scene in the movie Phenomenon, where John Travolta says to the little boy, “Everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything.”

Stories About Us

Dad says the mums are blooming as the tulips fade into summer.Tomato vines work their random course,they twine and clutch.

We open the door and go in. There is a breeze from the open windows but the day is warm.What do we become after this?

It’s almost time to stand and go, drive east against the clock, keeping low to the landand finally the sun will rise.

Maybe we should weep a while first, for everything. A ritual purge, a chrismation to purify our souls for high deserts.

After this, we are butterflies silent among the particles of dust, there where sunlight falls into the house in slanted shafts.

Lying on the rug, a child reads stories to herself, and the stories are all about us. Outside, an engine strains to rise and lift away.

6 thoughts on “On Our Way to Somewhere”

Thank you all, very much, for your comments and re-blogs. This poem was somewhat difficult to write because it lives in a thin membrane between daily life and the awareness of death. Even editing, after I let it cool in a drawer for a while, was emotional.